Filene’s Basement store picked clean as Hub retail icon closes

Credit: Stuart Cahill

THE END: Ilene Epstein, left, and Marcie Brawer, co-owners of the Studio in Brookline, grab some mannequin feet and racks for their shop on the last day for the Back Bay Filene’s Basement.

More than 100 years of Boston tradition and retail history came down to this yesterday: hired sign-holders hawking up-to-90-percent-off remaining clothing and store fixtures, for which “no reasonable offer” would be refused.

The Hub-born Filene’s Basement closed its doors on Boston for good yesterday when its Boylston Street store ended a going-out-of-business sale that started in November after parent company Syms Corp. declared bankruptcy.

“Oh my goodness,” shopper Adam Summerfield said as he stepped off the escalator and surveyed the second floor of the picked-over store yesterday afternoon, when only three dozen racks of clothing remained. “It’s just too bad. We lost Borders, we lost Daddy’s Junky Music, and we’re losing Filene’s Basement.”

Men’s items were down to a pair of black and yellow checkered flannel shirts, but the 37-year-old Boston resident grabbed two pairs of jeans for his girlfriend for $4.98. “It’s like a thrift shop in here — what a thrift shop used to be,” he said.

Yet some of what remained wouldn’t even pass muster at a thrift shop — broken sunglasses or an originally priced $650 Christian Lacroix tennis shirt now ratty with snags.

It was an undignified end to the 102-year-old discount chain — once famed for the “automatic markdown” policy at its former Downtown Crossing flagship store and its wild “Running of the Brides” wedding gown sales. When it filed for bankruptcy, the Basement employed 1,555 at 21 stores and an Auburn warehouse.

Assistant manager Daniela Bono, a 34-year Basement employee, started to cry when asked what the closing meant to her. “I’m very sad — it’s a tradition,” she said. “It’s very hurtful for it to have to close. It’s a very emotional day. I don’t want people to remember it like this.”

Everything left in the store was available for a price: small plastic size-tags that sit atop hangers; shelving and mirrors; foot mannequins for $2.50 apiece; wall-mounted TVs; an OKI color printer marked down from $900 to $450 with a “make an offer” tag.

One woman hauled away a shopping bag full of hangers for free. Other customers bought the signs off the walls.

In a barren section of the Basement, shopper Valerie Armstrong salvaged one last deal that harkened to the store’s better days, sizing up evening gowns from the likes of Ferragamo, Valentino and Escada.

“This is something Michelle Obama would wear,” Armstrong said, referring to a number by Peter Soronen, the designer whose gown the first lady chose to wear to this month’s reception for Kennedy Center honorees.

Originally priced at $2,000, the gown was going for less than $20 yesterday — eliciting one last bargain Basement exclamation.